Cape is hopping full of things to do

We went by Old Lorimier Cemetery during last weekend's "Rediscover Your Cape" tour.

Wendy and I joined a tour conducted by Dr. Frank Nickell of Southeast Missouri State University. It was fascinating to learn about the historic family ties to Cape Girardeau and elsewhere (including the Scripps family, whose heirs became founders of the E.W. Scripps Co. media empire).

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Cape Girardeau was busy last weekend with the wrap-up of "42nd Street" at Rose Theatre, Southeast Missouri State University's three baseball games (once again tied for first), the busy Cape Girardeau Regional Airport where the Drop Zone Restaurant hosted a breakfast fly-in Saturday morning, the previously mentioned "Rediscover Your Cape" tour, a bike race Sunday, the Old Town Cape/Charles Hutson auction and the cupcakes for wedding cakes bake sale.

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Deserving special mention was the Promise Keepers event at the Show Me Center Saturday night. The reported 2,738 in attendance looked more like almost 4,000 to my eye as the main floor was filled along with most of the lower three sides of the center. An electrified crowd shared Christian enthusiasm for the band, Teen Challenge choir and the local 12-member event host promoters.

Don Ford, president of Kanakuk Ministries, brought humor and passion to the event.

The local testimony was inspiring, and the expressions of Christian faith by SEMO basketball Coach Scott Edgar were good to hear.

As the event leader said (I paraphrase): "Isn't it great to have a Christian coach? Let's lift him up and give him positive support."

A previous commitment had me missing the one-hour testimony shared by former Rams quarterback and MVP Kurt Warner.

I was told his talk was great. I hope someone has a tape to share.

Cape Girardeau -- what a great place to live.

Nuclear Iran? "The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land. As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map." So rants Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

It is understandable why Ahmadinejad might want an arsenal of nuclear missiles. It would allow him to shake down a constant stream of rich European emissaries, pressure the Arab Gulf states to lower oil production, pose as the Persian and Shiite messianic leader of Islamic terrorists, neutralize the influence of the United States in the region -- and, of course, destroy Israel. Let no one doubt that a nuclear Iran would end the entire notion of peaceful global adjudication of nuclear proliferation and pose an unending threat to civilization itself.

In all his crazed pronouncements, Ahmadinejad reflects an end-of-days view; history is coming to its grand finale under his aegis. In his mind, he entrances even foreign audiences into stupor with his rhetoric. Of his recent U.N. speech, he boasted, "I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there. And for 27 to 28 minutes all the leaders did not blink." The name of Ahmandinejad, he supposes, will live for the ages if he takes out the "crusader" interloper in Jerusalem. As the Great Mahdi come back to life, he can do something for the devout not seen since the days of Saladin.

For now, however, Ahmadinejad faces two hurdles: He must get the bomb, and he must create the psychological landscape whereby the world will shrug at Israel's demise.

Oddly, the first obstacle may not be the hardest. An impoverished Pakistan and North Korea pulled it off. China and Russia will likely sell Tehran anything it cannot get from rogue regimes. The European Union is Iran's largest trading partner and ships it everything from sophisticated machine tools to sniper rifles, while impotent European diplomats continue "ruling out force" to stop the Iranian nuclear industry. Meanwhile, Moscow and Beijing, for all their expressed concern, will probably veto any serious punitive action by the United Nations.

As for the United States, it has 180,000 troops attempting to establish some sort of democratic stability in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention a growing anti-war movement at home. An unpredictable President Bush has less than two years left in the White House, with a majority opposition in Congress that is calling for direct talks with Ahmadinejad and urging congressional restraints on the possible use of force against Iran. It is no surprise that so many in Iran see no barrier to obtaining the bomb.

But the second obstacle -- preparing the world for the end of the Jewish state -- is trickier. -- Opening excerpt from a speech by Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at Hoover Institute, as published in Imprimis magazine.

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Thoughts on the business of life:

Guidelines for bureaucrats: 1. When in charge, ponder. 2. When in trouble, delegate. 3. When in doubt, mumble. -- James Boren

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. -- Milton Friedman

If you're going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive, but the bureaucracy won't. -- Hyman Rickover

Gary Rust is chairman of Rust Communications.